Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Back at CnT Lechon, Cebu City

After two years since my first visit to CnT Lechon in Cebu City, I found myself excitedly walking up the short flight of stairs again towards the big dining hall this time with Paul. For those who remembered, CnT Lechon was my preferred roasted pork due to it's delicious smokey flavor that just showed how authentic it was.

Since it was Paul's first time in the Queen City of the South, I made sure that we won't be leaving Cebu without letting him have his first taste of real, authentic Cebu lechon. By that, I just posed a great challenge to myself as we're talking about my true blue Capampangan husband who swears by his favorite sisig, lechon and chicharon with atchara (all from his hometown in Angeles). Since we were staying at Radisson Blu, CnT Lechon was a quick 5 minute walk away. Do be ready for some heart-stopping jay-walking action though.

It was our lucky day as there was no queue when we got to the restaurant. This made ordering a breeze as we got our 1/4th kilo of lechon, two steamed puso (hanging rice) and a bowl of Pork Sinigang Soup in no time. The dishes served beside the chopping area looked quite good too but we decided to just stick to our initial order as we have been eating so much during this trip!

The lechon was freshly cook as we actually saw smoke coming out from the meat. It was much more tender than I remembered it to be and the flavor was spot on. A bit on the salty side but just enough to make you want more more more! It's still one of my favorite lechons in the Philippines!

Here's a tip: the best way to enjoy your lechon is to have it with puso. Puso is steamed rice wrapped in palm leaf. It's similar to the Indonesian ketupat only the rice isn't as glutinous which was good as I'm not very fond of the ones served with satay sticks here. A quick research on Google showed me that this is a very popular way of serving rice around Southeast Asia. You can expect to see puso-looking rice in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia and in Brunei. Interesting!

Since Paul loves having soup as part of the meal, we tried the Pork Sinigang which was delicious! I love tamarind-based soup and it's nice that they were very generous with the pork and veggies in our soup. Yummy!

Lastly, we also tried their atchara as we felt it would go well with our roast pork. Flavor-wise, it was just a-okay and if you ask me, I'd stick to that bottle of Mang Tomas with my lechon any given day.

A trip to Cebu will never be complete without visiting CnT Lechon!

Check out CnT Lechon at North Recalamation Area (across SM Cebu City). They also have a branch at the food court of Ayala Center Cebu and at 1377 Rama Avenue, Guadalupe, Cebu City.